Let me explain how I got here…back to Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on my hackintosh. I made the upgrade to 10.6.8, and for me it wasn’t easy because I lost sound on my hackintosh. A few weeks later, I figured it out and was cocky enough to try and make the update to Lion 10.7. Well…from reading some of the ‘How to’ guides, it seemed easy enough….for the most part, yes, it was easy.

Networking, audio, I had the graphics going but it without full acceleration (QE). So night after night after night i was searching the hackintosh forums, posting for help…nothing. One or two readers tried to help, but I could get my hackintosh to recognize my video card and give me full video acceleration! It was really bothering, I pissed off at my computer, I was pissed off at the hackintosh forums….everything I tried to do, it either just didn’t work, or got my hackintosh to fail at boot.

And so today I decided to install it all over, from the beginning. Getting started was a little tough…there are a TON guides out there very specific to the hardware used. I actually got my computer going again by using parts of different methods of found on the interweb. So let’s get going shall we?

Now here’s a list of what you’re going to need for this particular install:

Step 1
Get on a Mac, download and open myhack. In myhack, you’re going to create a bootable USB-HDD. Select Snow Leopard 10.6.x from the pull down menu and follow the instructions until myhack starts formatting your drive.

Step 2
Burn Empire EFI to CD. You’re going to need it once the install is complete and you need to boot to the new install of Snow Leopard.

Step 4
Now for my method, you’re going to need access to a Mac to create your boot USB-HDD.

First I created a boot drive using myhack. To create a boot USB-HDD you’ll need myhack, retail Snow Leopard 10.6.3 DVD and a USB-HDD at least 8GB in storage size. With the DVD in the tray, USB drive plugged in, open up myhack and select Create OS X 10.6 Install Disk for Snow Leopard.

STEP 5
Now you’re ready to install. Boot to your USD drive, and run a normal install. After installation completes, go ahead and reboot the system.

STEP 6
This is known as First Boot. Boot up again to your USB drive but and the prompt, select the HDD with your new installation. This is were basic setup begins.

STEP 7
After you make it to your desktop open up finder, browse to the USB device and locate the myHack app (it will be copied automatically to the root of the install device during the initial preparation described in “Step 1?). Run the myHack app, this time choose the “Install Chameleon + Extra” option and set the target to “/”. It will install chameleon and prompt you for the Extra installation just as it did in step one but since there are no large files to copy it will be done within a couple minutes at most.

You should now be ready to reboot your system without the USB installer attached.

Unmount/Eject the USB drive and reboot the system with the internal drive.

Congratulations! If all went well you now have a functional OS X operating system running on your system!